As a Courier story recently revealed, Dean Specialty Foods is cutting its final ties with Atkins, the town where it operated a pickle-producing facility up until two years ago.

Not only has the plant that employed thousands of area residents over the past 50-plus years shut down and emptied, the venerable (around these parts, at least) Atkins pickle brand the plant produced is going away as well - retired, according to the company.

The end of Atkins pickles and the Atkins pickle plant means the end for one other cucumber-related activity - the downtown festival called Picklefest. The festival will go on, as it has since 1992, just not under that name.

That's understandable. You can't have a Picklefest in Atkins if you don't have Atkins pickles, right?

In its last Atkins-related act, Dean Specialty Foods apparently reneged on an agreement made with People for a Better Atkins to supply Picklefest with its namesake. Management change, they say. Sold the factory that made 'em, they say.

There will be Atkins pickles to help ring out the Picklefest name, however. Supplies have been found in Oklahoma and Colorado, and PBA officials have rounded up trucks to bring them to the city.

The Atkins folks, to their great credit, aren't taking these corporate machinations personally. Rolling with the punches - having already lost a major employer, changing the name of a festival doesn't seem as big a deal - they plan to make the final Picklefest the best ever and solicit suggestions for a new name from festival-goers.

Still, the actions of Dean Specialty Foods leave a somewhat bitter taste in the mouth, sort of like a dill pickle gone bad.